In previous post we described how to isolate failure in bug report. Next task is to do follow up testing in order to try to demonstrate this failure in more spectacular way. We need to Maximize (RIMGEA) it.

AST Bug Advocacy course teaches that in order to Maximize the failure we can do four types of follow up testing:

vary our actions

vary the program's settings

vary the stored data you give the program

vary the environment

1. Vary our actions

By changing default "home" phone number category I discovered that there are ten possible categories: work, iPhone, mobile, main, home fax, work fax, pager, other, custom. Only iPhone and mobile categories offer send message icon. Nothing spectacular here, but we discovered new information about the product.

By exporting contact that contains work, iPhone and mobile categories to vcf file format, and importing back that information, nothing changed in that contact. Again, nothing spectacular, but we discovered vcf file format for work, iPhone and mobile categories.

work category format:
TEL;type=WORK;type=CELL:(2 )

iPhone category format
TEL;type=IPHONE;type=CELL;type=VOICE:(3 )

mobile category format
TEL;type=CELL;type=VOICE:(4 )

Additional types? And the rule how those extra types are added is not obvious? What is going on here?
I am stopping my analysis here, because this is another failure. Remember, we are investigating here message icon presence.
In vary stored data technique, we will investigate how contact changes when we change vcf file format.

2. Vary the program's settings

I changed two iOS settings related to contact application.
Settings/Phone/dial assistant/off caused no change in failure manifestation.
Settings/Messages/imessage/off caused no change in failure manifestation. Settings/Messages/sms/off when imessage not available also caused no effect in failure manifestation.

3. Vary environment

I used following number:

"+385921"

On Simulator for iPhone (Retina 4 inch) and iPad with iOS 7.0.3 when I added that number under home category, message icon was present. Not so spectacular as Tesla Coil, but we found inconsistency!

4. Vary stored data

I did following tests:

home category with valid mobile number - no message icon

mobile category with land line number - message icon is present

+++++, #####, *******, no effect on failure

Then I varied exported vcf data. I imported edited vcf file using email.
I discovered that when vcf row has several types then types priority starts from left to right. For example,
TEL;type=IPHONE;type=WORK;type=VOICE:(3 ) belongs to iPhone category, and
TEL;type=WORK;type=IPHONE;type=VOICE:(3 ) belongs to work category.

I have found nothing spectacular here.

Maximizing the failure was the greatest effort so far. In next post, I will try to Generalize the failure.